It’s been a pretty universal “go to” phrase for about 2 years now. When things go wrong, when we are confronted with harsh realities or impressions we don’t want to face. When we want to climb over and sneak around an issue ~ the advice we are given and even, often, try giving ourselves & others is “let it go”
Oh… just let it go. 
Sounds simple to some ~ impossible to others but in my personal and witnessed experience, completely ineffective & therefore, self-defeating.
We’ve got it all wrong.
Let it go ~ How one’s meant to do this has always boggled my mind. I mean, surely if I had the choice of something affecting me mentally, emotionally, subconsciously I would choose for it not to. If we were robots we would of course push the OFF button. It’s neither choice nor mechanical programming which allows us to release what no longer served us.
We’ve got it all kinds of wrong.
Magically detaching from something that’s hurt, dissapointed, angered or broken you isn’t an option.
Asking yourself or advising someone to simply let this go is a recipe for resistance and frustration… and, well, failure. 
What you resist, persists. 
What you fight off or suppress ultimately comes back with gathered momentum and avengence. You can’t let something go that’s holding onto YOU in return.
Where did this wisely-stupidly-ill-informed phrase come from?
Fear. We fear going there. We fear sitting with unpleasant feelings and an unsettled mind. We think that if we talk ourselves or others into LETTING something GO it will ease up. When what we actually need to be told is to go through it.

Let it be.
A simple change of verb.
Let it be. 
Don’t be scared to process what you’re struggling with.
Yes … I do understand that sounds like a scarier method but if you realise that everything is temporary, everything is always changing, you’ll recognise that owning where you are and allowing yourself to be there, knowing it won’t always be this way, that it will pass through you ~ that’s a release in itself. You won’t feel this way forever.
Unless you resist it.
This goes for everything. Your joys and sorrows. Practising the art of stillness when we want to race through our suffering and pop up on the other other side, ideally, unscathed.
This is the journey of our souls growth and development. It takes us down as well as up, demands that we face, even embrace, pain and darkness as well as joy and light.
LETTING IT BE trains us to use whatever comes up and wherever we find ourselves as occasions for inquiry, for opening, for growing in strength and wisdom, and for walking (not running or dodging) our own path.

Like a butterfly landing on your hand,… how long will it stay? No one knows. But you know it will lift off when it’s ready, when it’s given you the message it needed to give you and when you’ve opened up to receive it. 
What you do know is that it’ll be gone before you know it.
So, for now ~  Appreciate this moment for whatever it is and…
Let it be.